Soup

Zeamă

Zeamă, the traditional Moldovan chicken soup, with home-made noodles, vegetables and lovage, soured with borș (fermented wheat bran liquor). An aroma that recalls a grandmother's house — restorative and authentic.

Zeamă is the emblematic traditional soup of Moldova, a tart, aromatic poultry broth considered by many the universal cure for any ailment, from a cold to fatigue or a hangover. Clear, savoury and reviving, zeamă is one of the best-loved dishes of the Moldovans, a modest but deeply flavoured preparation that warms both body and soul.

How it is made

Zeamă is made from farmyard hen or cockerel, simmered over a low heat together with vegetables: carrot, onion, bell pepper, parsley and sometimes potatoes. Home-made noodles are added to the soup, made from egg dough rolled thin and finely cut, which give it its characteristic body. The defining element of zeamă, however, is borș — the sour liquor obtained by fermenting wheat bran — which gives it its distinctive tartness.

At the end, zeamă is finished with plenty of fresh herbs, above all lovage, which gives it its unmistakable aroma, but also dill and parsley. Some cooks add a beaten egg or sour cream to make it more velvety. The secret of a good zeamă lies in free-range poultry, in quality borș and in a generous handful of lovage, without which zeamă would not truly be zeamă.

When it is eaten and its cultural role

Zeamă is served throughout the year, a fixture at Sunday meals and at memorial feasts, where it usually opens the sequence of courses. It is held to be the dish that "puts a person back on their feet", recommended for the ill, the tired and, in particular, for those who enjoyed themselves rather too well the night before.

In Moldovan popular culture, zeamă has the status of a national dish, associated with the warmth of the home and with a mother's or grandmother's care. It is often said, with humour, that it "puts the dead back on their feet", so great is its reputation for restoring strength and appetite for life. Its lovage aroma and its tart borș flavour are among the strongest culinary memories of Moldovans everywhere, evoking Sundays spent at home. More than a simple soup, zeamă is a symbol of hospitality, of tradition and of the soul of the native kitchen, a dish that unites generations around the same table.